The passage of legislation reforming the health-care system in the United States is one of the most important and far-reaching measures of social policy in that country in the last 100 years.

It is as momentous as the introduction of pensions by President Franklin D Roosevelt and the “Great Society” measures of President Lyndon B Johnson. It represents a triumph of good sense over entrenched corporate interests in the health insurance sector that spent enormous sums to derail the legislation.

The new arrangements will improve the life of millions of Americans, in particular the 30 million who do not now have any form of health insurance.

It has converted President Barack Obama’s much vaunted potential for transformative leadership into the actuality of leadership. He has restored to the presidency and the Democrats the political initiative which they had at the time of Mr Obama’s election. It has unified the Democratic Party whose disparate strands of political philosophy have only the commonality of not being Republican.

And it has restored much lost credibility to President Obama because he has delivered on a campaign promise and revealed that he has not lost the political acumen that got him elected.

He had to overcome a well-funded and concerted media campaign of misinformation and virulent slander, while being falsely labelled a Socialist. He held his name and remained calm, showing that, as Richard Nixon opined: “The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire.”

The accomplishment of health-care reform has rescued his presidency and laid claim to him being a historic change agent.

Free of health-care reform, Mr Obama now needs to move quickly and decisively to restore tangible economic growth and employment to the US economy.

His administration needs to establish a collaborative modality with China on a broad range of issues, starting with co-operation to stimulate a recovery of the global economy.

Neither superpower by itself can be an engine of growth of sufficient power to overcome the persistent recession in the world economy. Global recovery requires the thrust of the twin engines of the US and China.

An integral component of the capacity of the US to stimulate its economy is to terminate the colossal haemorrhage of resources in Afghanistan and Iraq. No outside power has ever conquered Afghanistan and if this were even to be accomplished it would not stop terrorism.

Terrorism breeds and festers in ignorance, intolerance, oppression and poverty. Therefore, the only counter to terrorism is economic development, peace and democracy. Ending the economically debilitating military action will allow the Obama administration to reallocate the resources freed from the military quagmire of Iraq to productive uses.

A large part of the released resources should be devoted to foreign aid aimed at the promotion of development and the alleviation of poverty. Crudely put, this is security expenditure for the US and is the best antidote to terrorism. You can never have too many friends and you cannot eliminate all your enemies.

Military disentanglement and economic recovery will not be any easier than health-care, but it may be just as important to the US and will be far more important to the world than health-care reform in the US.

Mr Obama and his Democrats have our heartiest congratulations.